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Author Archives: AJ Kessler
How Could Anyone Live Here?
If you’ve traveled at all, even if it’s just a few miles from your home, you’ve undoubtedly run across places that you can’t imagine living. Â Desolate or teeming, scorching or freezing, swamp-like or bone-dry, gaudy or spartan, run down, dilapidated … Continue reading
Posted in Food For Thought, Relationships, Travel
Tagged Career, Life, Lifestyle, Location, Moving, relationships, Travel
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Why Procrastination Is Good
Very interesting thought from Cal Newport: The evolutionary perspective on procrastination, by contrast, says we delay because our frontal lobe doesn’t see a convincing plan behind our aspiration. The solution, therefore, is not to muster the courage to blindly charge … Continue reading
Posted in Food For Thought, Productivity, Quotes, Rationality, Self-Improvement
Tagged Cal Newport, Evolutionary Psychology, Procrastination
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Why Economists Are Wrong, or How Specialization Makes Us Unhappy
We generally understand how specialization and competitive advantage make us all richer. Lawyers particularly, and I imagine other highly paid hourly workers, understand that the best use of their time is spent lawyering. For this reason, these professionals have an … Continue reading
Posted in Food For Thought, Productivity, Quotes, Rationality, Video
Tagged Comparative Advantage, DIY, Do It Yourself, Rationality, Specialization
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It’s Always Incompetence
Whenever an event can be explained by either a vast conspiracy or simple incompetence, always assume incompetence. This is merely a corollary to Hanlon’s Razor, but it can save you just as much anguish.
Posted in Advice, Food For Thought
Tagged debate, Hanlon's Razor, Rationality, relationships
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Curiosity, or How Elon Musk Thinks
ELON MUSK: I think, generally, their {other people’s} thinking process is too bound by convention or analogy to prior experiences. So it’s very rare that people try to think of something on a first principles basis. They’ll say, “We’ll do … Continue reading
Posted in Food For Thought, Inspiration, Quotes, Rationality, Self-Improvement
Tagged Critial Thinking, First Principals, Thought Process
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Stalin Was Right
One death is a tragedy. One Million is a statistic. This fundamental deficiency in our humanity, as it has been called, is a weird phenomena. Why can we be so emotionally moved by an individual’s story, and yet so unmoved … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Business, Inspiration, Quotes, Relationships
Tagged Customer Service, Groups, Humanity, Individual, Quote, Stalin
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Appreciation For Inaptitude
To the Gods: [Thanks] That I wasn’t more talented in rhetoric or poetry, or other areas. If I’d felt that I was making better progress I might never have given them up. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 1:17 You hear … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Business, Creativity, Inspiration, Quotes, Self-Improvement
Tagged Advice, Aptitude, Life, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Plans
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I Don’t Know
My friend Richard Feynman said, “I don’t know.” I heard him say it several times. He said it just like Harold, the mentally handicapped dishwasher I worked with when I was a young man making minimum wage at Famous Bill’s … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Quotes, Rationality, Relationships, Self-Improvement
Tagged Answer, Honesty, I Don't Know, Question, Response, Truth
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Recognize When You’re Being An Asshole
There are some instances when I can’t stand wasting time. If someone’s driving 10 mph under the speed limit on a one lane road, I’m infuriated. If the one guy behind the counter at the post office is moving at … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Food For Thought, Inspiration, Relationships, Self-Improvement
Tagged Asshole, Betterment, Calm, Fury, Inconvenience, people, Rage, Zen
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Being Interesting Requires Being Interested
Seth Godin with another pithy post: Interesting and Interested . . . it helps to be both. These are the two ways you earn attention. If it’s so obvious, why is it so difficult? Everybody wants to be interesting, to … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Business, Creativity, Food For Thought, Inspiration, Rationality
Tagged Interested, Interestingness, Life, Seth Godin
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People Aren’t Racists, They’re Assholes
If I was black, I’m pretty sure I would think a huge section of our society was racist. If I was flamboyantly gay, I’m pretty sure I would think a huge section of our society was homophobic. If I was … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Food For Thought, Relationships, Self-Improvement
Tagged Adam Carolla, Assholes, Homophobia, Humanity, Life, Racism, relationships, Xenophobia
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Don’t Judge Me, Bro
Judgment is a basic animal process. A dog’s brain instantly processes hundreds of data points of sounds, smells, visual cues and behavioral phenomena to determine which animals are friendly and which are not. The reactions are so quick because these … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Food For Thought, Persuasion, Quotes, Rationality, Self-Improvement
Tagged Brain, How We Decide, Impression, Johnah Lehrer, Logos, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Mind, Perception
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Pay Attention To Get Rich
Being aware of the world around you is important. It makes life more interesting. It’s the foundation for creativity. It can also make you rich. I’m reminded of this fact by Sam Farber, founder of OXO. How did Sam, a … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Business, Creativity, Food For Thought, Inspiration
Tagged Art, Awareness, Business, Curiosity, Inspiration
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Your Preferences Don’t Matter, Your Customers’ Do
If you’ve ever tried to go to a restaurant’s website, there’s a 98% chance your experience was horrifically unpleasant. Usually, after the obligatory 10-30 second load time, there’s some weird music that starts playing, there’s obnoxious pictures or slideshows coming … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Aesthetics, Food For Thought
Tagged Business, Desires, experience, Fulfill Needs, Restaurant, Web Page, Website
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